Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, or anything else that finds its way into these pages. No disrespect intended, only homage, no profit made, only entertainment intended. If you're a fan, read it, if you don't like it, stop reading. Simple as pie.
Rating: M for Mature.
Spoilers: Few but possible throughout the comics and the entire MCU, although I don't know yet whether the MCU will even come into play here. Currently we are long, long before any of that takes place.
Chapter Two: Bad Kids
I'm not that typical baby, I'm a bad kid, like my mom and dad made me.
I'm not that cool, and you hate me. I'm a bad kid, that's the way that they made me.
I'm a bad kid, I'm disastrous. Give me your money, or I'll hold my breath.
I'm a bad kid, and I will survive. One of the bad kids, don't know wrong from right.
- "Bad Kids" by Lady Gaga
"Play with me, Braska!"
"I'll be there in a moment, my Prince," the tall, silver-haired Vanir Nord said, laughing just a little. The dark-haired child grinned and ran to play with his Barbjoldrs – small figurines that could be dressed in interchangeable armors and weapons and set to fight each other in animated combat. Their name meant, approximately, "Gladiators," and some of them were even modeled after famous combatants of Asgardian gladiatorial sport combat. Most children simply called the dolls "Barbies." They were equally popular with girls as well as boys. The boy had quite an extensive collection of them, being as he was, a scion of the Royal Family.
"When do you plan to tell him?" the older dark-haired Nord said in an undertone.
Braska shook his head, his expression mournful. "I hardly know how. I've been here for him since his birth, he's never known a day without me. It will be hard to explain to him why I have to go away."
"There are many Summoners, Braska. Perhaps you do not have to go away."
"Auron, don't try to talk me out of it now."
"I am simply asking whether you have fully considered the ramifications."
"I have. And the truth of the matter is that I would not be doing my full duty by Prince Loki as his Guardian if I did not take on the problem of Sin. I must act to keep him safely away from that monster, to the best of my ability. And my abilities make me a Summoner, so I must act as a Summoner."
"Then allow me to make objection to your choice of Guardian."
"You'll be a fine Guardian, Auron," Braska said, clapping the former monk on the shoulder.
"Not me, that drunken lout you took from the dungeons."
"Jecht? He just needs a reason to clean up his act. He'll be a fine Guardian as well. You'll see."
"Well if you are insistent upon leaving this evening I suggest you figure out a way to tell His Highness soon. It would not be wise to leave him in the lurch."
"No, it wouldn't." Braska hesitated, then stepped forward and sat down cross-legged on the floor next to where the boy played. He picked up a Barbjoldr and put a mythril broadaxe in its hand.
"My Prince, do you know of Sin?" he asked, as delicately as he could.
"Little sin, or big Sin?" the boy said.
"Big Sin."
The boy stopped playing and looked up at him with solemn emerald gemstone eyes. "You mean the monster that comes every thousand years and kills people?"
"Yes, my Prince. That Sin. Do you know how Sin is made to go away for those thousand years of Calm?"
"A Summoner defeats it with an Aeon."
"That's right. You're a smart boy, my Prince, very learned for your age. And so I wonder whether you have heard that Sin has recently returned to Asgard?"
The little boy shook his head. "I did not know," he said. "Did people die?"
"Yes, my Prince, I'm afraid they did. Not only that, but the monster struck very close to the Golden City. Very close to the Palace, my Prince. It made me very afraid for your safety, my Prince."
"You mean it could hurt me? Father couldn't stop it?" the boy said, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Where Sin is concerned, anything is possible, my Prince. With enough warning, the Palace's shields should save you, but Sin often attacks with very little warning at all."
"You'll protect me, won't you? That's what you do," the boy said.
"Yes it is, and that is of what I wish to speak to you. In order to keep you safe from Sin, I must go away and fight it, as a Summoner. I must work hard to give you that thousand years of Calm your childhood deserves. I must protect you, my daughter, and every child in Asgard. You understand, do you not?"
"You're leaving?" Big green eyes began to overflow with tears.
"I must. Myself, Sir Auron, and Sir Jecht are leaving tonight."
"But I'll miss you." The prince put his arms around Braska's neck and hugged him, careful not to touch his skin.
"I will miss you too, my Prince. But this is something I must do. For your future, and the future of all Asgard's children. You understand why I would want to keep Juna safe, don't you?"
The boy pulled back, sniffled, wiped away a tear, and nodded. "I understand."
"I'm sorry to put this on you, but you had to know. I couldn't go away and leave you without you knowing why."
The boy nodded again, his little mouth turned down in a sad frown. He turned back to his Barbies but didn't seem to have the heart to play any longer. Braska sighed and climbed to his feet. He went to stand in the doorway beside Auron.
"That… did not go well, but better perhaps than I expected," he said.
"Breaking a child's heart never goes well, but the Prince is strong," Auron said. "He will be all right."
"I hope Juna handles it as well when I tell her."
"She is older, she should understand well enough."
"I hope you are right, my friend."
A Royal Guardsman appeared at the door at that moment and saluted. "Guardian Braska, His Royal Majesty wishes to speak with you. At once."
Braska exchanged a glance with Auron. "I wonder what that's about. Better hop to, though. Odin doesn't ask for social calls. Keep an eye on His Highness for me, won't you, Auron?"
"Of course. Godspeed, Braska."
Braska left the Prince's room and followed the winding corridor through the family area to the Throne Room where Odin held court. He was surprised to find the place abandoned by all but the King himself, seated upon golden Hlidskjalf (the Throne, every part and parcel of Royal Accouterments had their own proper name), with Huginn and Munnin, his ravens, perched to either side of him on the arms. Huginn meant "Thought" and Muninn meant "Memory." They were less pets than spies.
Braska made a low obeisance. "You wished to speak with me, Your Majesty?" he said./
"You spoke of Sin to my son." It was not presented as a question.
"I… yes, Your Majesty."
"I did not want my sons to know of such things at this point in their young lives. For Divine's sake, Braska, Loki is only five, he's barely more than an infant."
"I fear I did not inform him of anything he did not already know, Your Majesty. The boy is peculiarly intelligent."
"He may know the fact of evil, but I do not want him to know its face. After what you said today, I would not be surprised if there are monsters under his bed tonight."
Braska sighed. "And I won't be there to dispel them. I am sorry, Your Majesty. I went about this very foolishly."
"You are young. It is the providence of the young to speak without thinking through every word before it is said. As you get older, you begin to ponder the weight of your words more carefully before you say them."
"How do I fix this, Your Majesty?"
"Likely you cannot," Odin said. "You are set on leaving tonight, as you say, it would take a great deal longer than you have to settle the boy's mind. But as your friend said, the child is strong, doubtless he will be well enough. Be glad of that, or I would come down hard on you."
"Of course, Your Majesty."
"Odin waved his hand. "You are dismissed, Good Braska."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Braska said, bowing low again. He left the Throne Room and returned to Prince Loki's room.
"He and Auron and Jecht left that night, as planned, and Loki was saddened. For several days he moped about his room, unwilling to play with anything. Then, with a sudden resurgence of resolve, Loki jumped up from where he sat on the edge of his bed, ran out of the room, and straight through the halls to the Throne Room, where he found his father in the middle of Court.
He waited in a line of petitioners to speak to him. When it was his turn, he stepped forward and bowed.
"You have something to ask of me, my son?" Odin said.
"Father, may I have a job?" Loki said.
Odin's icy blue eye grew very round with surprise. "A job? Why would you wish for a job, my son? You have everything you could ask for right here at home."
"I thought perhaps a job would give me something to do that would keep my mind off losing Braska," Loki said.
"Odin sat back in Hlidskjalf and pondered. The boy, young though he may be, had a point. Braska was right, the child was really peculiarly intelligent.
"I will make arrangements with an old friend of mine in the city," Odin said. "You will have your 'job' by noon today. I trust that will be soon enough?"
"Thank you, Father, that will be perfect," Loki said, and bowed. He waited to be dismissed and ran skipping out of the Throne Room.
"And so that afternoon, a Royal Guard escorted Prince Loki to a small storefront on the east end of the city and left him there in the care of an elderly Bangaa named Migelo, a well-to-do merchant with longstanding ties to His Majesty who often aided the many orphan children that roamed the streets of the Golden City with work and food and safe lodgings. Loki required none of those things, but Migelo always had a bit of extra work for an eager helper. He set him to running errands.
"For a few days things went swimmingly, and Loki spent a few hours each day trotting back and forth from the store to various nearby locations. Then one day he arrived with his guard to find Migelo standing outside the store, looking distressed.
"What's wrong, Migelo?" he asked.
"Oh, Your Highness, I'm sorry, it's just that I'm catering the fete for the Estates General tonight, and my wine shipment is two days late! I sent Kytes to the inn to fetch me word on where it might be by now but he hasn't come back yet – probably run off to play, he's not all that reliable."
"Would you like me to go check on it for you?" Loki asked.
"Would you, please? Just ask Tomaj the innkeeper what might be keeping it held up and if perhaps he might have some replacement wines for me if they're not going to be here by tonight. Thank you so much, Your Highness."
Loki ran off to the nearby inn and went inside. There he found Kytes, staring fixedly at the hunt board on the tavern wall. Kytes spotted him and began bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.
"Loki Loki Loki, look! This is it, this is the reason Migelo's wines have been stalled!"
Kytes was a very young lad only a handful of years older than Loki, but he was even smaller and looked younger, possibly due to poor nutrition from his homelessness. He couldn't read very well but he could recognize some words and make guesses about others. He had a provincial accent, although Loki didn't know enough about Asgard to realize it. He was a recent arrival to the Golden City – sooner or later, it was said, all Asgard's Sin Orphans migrated to the capital. It was safer there. Sin rarely attacked it, and there were the shields.
"There was only one posting on the board at the moment. Loki eyed it suspiciously. It depicted what looked for all the world like a ripe red tomato perched on a tiny bipedal body striped like a convict's uniform. He could read rather well despite being so far from school age, so Loki read the description alongside the picture.
"BOUNTY: ROGUE TOMATO. Location, the Stepping. This small, mysterious fiend has been attacking trade caravans trying to reach the Golden City from the Eastern Outpost. Drovers can't get their chocobos to pass through the Stepping. PLEASE HELP. REWARD: 300 silver Borrsons, two basic health potions, and a teleport stone. Inquire with Innkeeper Tomaj."
"Where's the Stepping?" he asked Kytes.
"Just outside the East Gate of the Valhalla," Kytes said. Valhalla meant wall, as in city wall, in this case. The Vikings would hear about the Valhalla around the Golden City and turned it into their version of heaven, hoping to be allowed entrance to the beautiful capital of their godly heroes one day.
"Why hasn't someone taken care of it, if it's stopping trade?" Loki asked
"Because, the beast and the bounty both are too small for the professionals," a man said behind them. Loki turned and saw a man who could have been Aesir if he had not been too short and skinny to be anything but Vanir. "Name's Tomaj, I'm the innkeeper here, and the petitioner of that hunt in which you boys are interested. I know why you're interested, too – Migelo sent you about his wines. I'm sorry to say I don't have them, nor do I have enough to spare him. It's that damned mandragora – it's keeping supplies scarce."
"What is this thing?" Loki asked.
"Just what it looks like, my lad. A tomato with legs, essentially. They're called mandragora, they come in all varieties – there are onion-headed kinds, pumpkin-heads, turnip-heads, all types. I've heard they're pretty tasty, but they aren't usually seen around here. If I could get someone to hunt this thing for me, I'd pay them extra to bring me back the head for the soup of the day, but no one seems interested. Posting's been up for days, and postings rarely stay up for an hour before someone takes a whack at them."
The innkeeper eyed Loki up and down in a speculative manner. "You know, you look pretty strong and capable for a youngster. I'm a recruiter for a local organization that looks for talented hunters. If you can take care of this rogue tomato, I bet they'd be willing to consider you as an apprentice. Interested? There's a lot of glory to be won from it."
Glory. That all-consuming drive for any Asgardian, particularly a Nord. There were many different races in this strange and magical world – lizard-like Bangaa, smaller, slimmer, scalier lizard-like Argonians, cat-like Khajiit, Elves of all descriptions, Dwarves, mousey little Moogles, smaller flying hairless koala-like Moogles, Orcs, Giants, and more. They all wanted glory, but no one strove for it like the powerful Nords. Even in a child like Loki, the word woke certain longings. His father would be so proud of him if he were to bring glory to the family!
He reached for his belt and withdrew the simple dagger he wore there. "I think I could hunt it… if it was really easy prey."
"It's small fry all right, my lad. And not far outside town. You shouldn't find it hard to find. Indeed, it should stick out like a sore thumb. Just don't get too close to the Wild Saurian – it shouldn't bother you if you don't bother it. And try not to run afoul of the local wolves, they're aggressive."
He pulled something off his upper arm and handed it over. "This is an Orrachea, an armlet enchanted to increase your vitality. Every little bit helps, eh? And the enchantment stacks with other enchantments you may come across later, so you can keep it with you. Think of it as a gift to commemorate your first hunt. And take this," he said, taking a black leather bound book from his back pocket. "It's a Clan Primer. It will keep track of your hunts for you, as well as your kills and Clan Points. It will be especially useful to you if you join the Clan, but it will be of use to you regardless of whether you do or you don't."
"All right, I'm on my way… but uh… how do I get to the East Gate?" Loki asked.
"Never been to the Valhalla before? No problem, my lad – just head straight back down to Migelo's Sundries, and cross the street to the little alleyway just there. Head through and you're in the South Gates Plaza. The East Gate, South Gate, and West Gate are all right there. The East Gate is the one that will be right behind you to your left as you enter."
"Got it. For Glory!" Loki said, with a cross-armed salute, and scampered out the door.
Tomaj turned back to the bar and shook his head, chuckling. "Cute kid," he said to himself. "Cute kid."
Loki found East Gate easily enough. The great gates slid open automatically as he approached, revealing brilliant blue skies and a lush desertscape beyond the courtyard. Golden sand – literally golden, aurum pounded to dust by millennium of erosion – pink-leafed trees, red wadi walls, cacti – stationary and walking – yucca, and other desert plants not found on other worlds grew in proliferation. Loki saw and carefully avoided the orange-coated wolves, stopped and stared a moment at the giant green Wild Saurian – forty feet long and suspiciously Tyrannosaurian in appearance, although that particular creature did not yet exist as the planet his people would come to call Midgard, where the dinosaur would evolve, had not yet formed – such a powerful creature! And so beautiful! What a glorious battle that would be. Of course, he was not ready for such a fight, not ready even to fight the wolves that traveled in packs, but someday…
I may be guilty of painting a bad picture of Asgardians by showing them coercing small children into hunting, showing how those children are thirsty for blood. Hunting is not only a greatly respected profession in Asgard, it is a necessary one. Many of Asgards creatures, the ones known not as animals but as fiends, are not born as animals are, through natural procreation, but from the element known traditionally as the Mist, which comes from the very stone Asgard is built upon. That stone is commonly called Isogen, or Element Zero, and it is this stone which provides the people of Asgard with their amazing strength, power, and longevity. Its power imbues the water, the plantlife, the very air of Asgard, and millions of fiends are born from that Mist every day. If hunters did not take it upon themselves to cull their numbers, they would swiftly overwhelm the ecology. There were also what were known as Rift creatures, born from dimensional rifts that were common in Asgard, and they had no business whatsoever in the realm and did tremendous damage when they appeared. Asgardians are well aware of the delicate balance of nature and keen to maintain it. But they are thirsty for blood.
Loki tore his gaze away from the green dinosaur-like creature and looked for the color red. He spotted it under a pink-leafed Valeblossom tree on a small rise and headed that direction. As he got closer, the red resolved itself into a plump red tomato wandering around on two short, skinny legs, with a striped convict body and two penguin-like flippers for arms.
He was still a long way away, his eyesight being particularly keen, but he drew his dagger and went into sneak mode, casting an illusion of invisibility over himself. It occurred to him belatedly that it might have been wise to have cast that illusion upon himself before entering the desert in the first place, but it was clearly too late now. The wolves doubtless could have smelled him out regardless anyway, so perhaps it did not matter.
He drew nearer, the sound of his footfalls muffled in the heavy golden sand. The tomato waddled around, going about its incomprehensible walking plant creature business, taking no note of his approach, indicating that it did not smell him out. It did not seem to have any sort of nose or even eyes that Loki could see, so perhaps invisibility was overkill, but it paid to be careful. The thing did have a mouth, with what looked to be some extremely sharp fangs. Odd to think of a tomato having fangs.
He came right up to it and stabbed it in the body. It shrieked and blew a plume of flame directly at him, even though he had not broken his illusion. The legs of his fine trousers caught fire and he cursed. The mandragora jumped off the ridge to the ground below. Loki looked, judged the distance, and jumped himself, not even bothering to put out the fire in his pants. He landed on his feet and stabbed his dagger directly into the head of the beast. It died with a shriek on the end of his blade. He twisted it with a sense of deep satisfaction, then smothered the flames on his trouser legs in the golden sand. His pants didn't even appear singed, oddly enough.
He cut the head off the mandragora and headed back to town, where he broke the illusion of invisibility on himself. He went straight to the inn and plopped the mandragora's head on the end of the bar.
"You did it! And you look none the worse for wear, too!" Tomaj said. "Good show, lad! Your bounty, as promised. And also as promised, a bit extra for bringing back the head for that soup! Sixty silver borrsons extra! Not bad for your first hunt, eh?"
"Will Migelo get his wines now?" Loki asked.
"He should. I'll send word to the Outpost that the caravans are free to travel to the city unimpeded now. Migelo's wines should be here within the hour."
"Good. I'll go tell Migelo."
"You do that. And go to the North End, check out the building with the sign out front marked with the same symbol marked on the front of your Clan Primer. There's a Bangaa in front of the door – he'll let you in. It'll be worth your while."
"I shall… if my Father allows it. Good day."